Architecture Center Houston Announces First Annual Film Festival

Architecture Center Houston's outreach programs tend to focus on architecture around Houston, with walking tours and exhibitions featuring regional designers. Its newest program, a film festival focused on architecture, allows for more breadth.

"Our goal is to promote architecture and encourage and engage all of Houston in a conversation about architecture as much as possible," says ArCH Associate Director Mat Wolff. "Most of our programs now do have a lot to do with local and regional architects, and the film festival does allow for a broader discussion of architecture."

ArCH also hopes to continue to engage the non-architect population of Houston through the film festival, says Membership Chair Ned Dodington.

The festival will feature three movies over three nights in August and includes Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio, which explores activism in architecture and the social responsibility of the medium. It will include a Q&A discussion with filmmaker Sam Wainwright Douglas.

The other films are Regular or Super, which examines a Mies van der Rohe-designed gas station, and VDL Research House: Richard Neutra's Studio and Residence, a profile of architect Richard Neutra. Though the films' subjects are universal, there is plenty of local draw. "It's interesting when you talk about someone as international as Mies, you forget that he's done a lot of work around Houston," says Dodington.

Each screening will be preceded by a collection of juried short films by students at the Rice School of Architecture and the University of Houston's College of Architecture.